I’ll admit for the most part I like living in small cities rather than big ones. Big cities, especially in China, have just too many people and too many cars.
But there are some things I’m really enjoying about living in Hangzhou. The cool cafes for one (I’ve whiled away many an hour sipping tea in several different ones) and the cultural aspects. My friends always tell me about the cool stuff happening in Hangzhou, such as cooking classes, trips, Chinese corners and special events. I usually can’t go because it’s either during the week or just too difficult for me to get to.
But now that I’m living in the city I get to finally go to some. My favorite recurring event has been the TED discussion group. If you live under a rock, TED is a series of short, thought provoking speeches giving by people who have done interesting things. Each TED talk is short, but can be talked about for hours. So that’s what we do!
Every few weeks an e-mail goes out with a video to watch and a topic to discuss. The first one I attended was about social media. The video was one from Seth Godin about how ideas spread. Then everyone met in a bar thursday night to discuss not just social media, but Chinese social media in specific.
The thing I really liked was the mix of people. We spoke English but there were very few native speakers. In fact the first time I went there was only 2 Americans and no Brits. Aside from a lot of Chinese people there were Germans, French, Spanish, Africans and others. The conversation was especially interesting because we all had different backgrounds and cultures to give us different ideas.
The next TED discussion group I went to was about open spaces. The video was about the misuse of public spaces in America, but we changed the conversation to public spaces in China. We decided to meet outside, in a square that is highly utilized at night by groups of old ladies dancing, kids running around, people walking their dogs and just having fun. Each person had to do something, a little performance, and a few times we drew a crowd and got some of the locals involved. We did stretching, played the “don’t let the other person step on your feet” game, listened to a few songs, and one guy even beat-boxed. My friend Will decided he’d dress African (he decided it was too hot outside for full garb so he just had a traditional hat) and let people take pictures of him for a small fee. Nobody actually paid but we ended up dancing with an old guy, and even I got in one picture because the guy wanted the foreign girls in the picture too.
It was cool because while the talk was about public spaces we used the public space to it’s fullest. Which was the idea, of course.
So while I like living in a “small” city of a million (small by Chinese standards) I’m trying to take full advantage of my summertime of living in a big city. And I’m having a good time. Now if it would only cool off a little I’d be even happier.
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